[Driananium]

Housing
What size is your tank? 10 gallons
What temperature is your tank? 76f (working on a better heater)
Does your tank have a filter? Sponge
Does your tank have an air stone or other type of aeration? Sponge filter
Is your tank heated? Barely but yes
What tank mates does your betta fish live with? 5 total female Bettas

Food
What type of food do you feed your betta fish? Hikari micro pellets
How often do you feed your betta fish? Daily

Maintenance
How often do you perform a water change? Bi weekly
What percentage of the water do you change when you perform a water change? 20%
What type of additives do you add to the water when you perform a water change? Prime

Water Parameters:
Have you tested your water? If so, what are the following parameters? No

Ammonia:
Nitrite:
Nitrate:
pH:
Hardness:
Alkalinity:

Symptoms and Treatment
How has your betta fish's appearance changed? Layer of gold dust
How has your betta fish's behavior changed? No
When did you start noticing the symptoms? 3 weeks ago
Have you started treating your fish? If so, how? Salt, blackout, increase in temp to 85, fenbendazole
Does your fish have any history of being ill? No
How old is your fish (approximately)? 8 months

A couple weeks ago I noticed one of my girls in my sorority tank with what appeared to be gold dust. Being relatively new to the fish keeping hobby I googled it and came up that she probably had velvet. So I treated with salt and temperature increase. I didn't quarantine because of the fragile nature of a sorority and I figured if one had it the whole tank had it. 4 days later the velvet is gone so I do a water change because the salt is killing my plants. The next day the same fish is again lightly covered in gold dust. So after some research I decide to treat it with fenbendazole (so my plants wouldn't die)as well thinking maybe it never went away. This morning I turned on the light to check on them and she's cleared up again. So I water change again to get out the fen and now she looks dusty again. Note in all this time none of the others have gotten dusty, and she hasn't lost her appetite or otherwise changed. Is it possible it isn't velvet seeing how this is week three and she still isn't dead and no one else has it?

 

[LittleBettaFish]

If it was truly velvet, you should be seeing some behavioural changes. Velvet causes great irritation to fish, particularly in the delicate gill tissue and they will usually flick or scratch themselves against things to try and dislodge the parasite. They will often become lethargic, lose their appetite, and spend most of their time with their fins clamped. Because velvet seems to particularly like the gills, you will often notice more rapid gill movement than normal.

Also, velvet has quite a complex life-cycle and is unlikely to go away after three or four days of treatment. I have had big problems with it in the past (went through at least ten of my tanks) and you are looking at least a couple of weeks to get rid of it fully.

I find velvet gets misdiagnosed all the time on this board because people mistake natural iridescence for the parasite. In your case, with the lack of other symptoms, I am inclined to think that this isn't velvet at all.

Also, if it really is velvet, the best way of getting rid of it that I have found is heat, darkness and copper based medications. It is much more difficult to fully eradicate than ich, which will often die off with nothing more than higher temperatures. Like I mentioned above, if it is velvet you would be looking at a much longer treatment period than a matter of days. Doing this sort of stop and start medicating is not advised. If it is velvet you can't just stop when you don't see the parasites as often this is when you have reached the part of the life-cycle where the parasite can be killed and by stopping treatment, you allow it to re-infect your fish.

 

[Driananium]

I can't use copper based meda due to my live plants. I've had her about 5 months now and haven't seen it until a couple weeks ago. However she isn't itchy, clampy, or uncomfortable. Gonna see if I can't get a picture.